


the places you will be from

by Imkerin



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Borussia Dortmund, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, past hubotic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:42:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6771337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imkerin/pseuds/Imkerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come back to the hotel with me," Neven says, quiet under the sound of the air conditioning echoing off the tiled walls and the drip of a faucet from across the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the places you will be from

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wortfee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wortfee/gifts).



"Come back to the hotel with me," Neven says, quiet under the sound of the air conditioning echoing off the tiled walls and the drip of a faucet from across the room.

Mitch glances up, wondering if he heard that wrong, some kind of bizarre trick of his subconscious. Neven's drying his hands meticulously, head bent down to watch what he's doing. A lock of hair escapes from behind his ear, curling across his cheek as he turns to toss the towel into the bin, and Mitch thinks _what if I said yes--_

Then Neven's straightening, looking at him, and Mitch knows with sudden certainty he didn't mishear. He hears himself say "Okay," from a very long distance away. The tiny twitch of Neven's lips is too close and too intimate.

 

They leave the restaurant shoulder to shoulder; Neven pauses briefly to smile at some kid who's staring at him wide-eyed from across the room and Mitch gets the door. In the corner of his mind that's not completely occupied with with trying to grasp what the fuck he's doing, he imagines: if this was anything else, if they were anyone else, Neven would have his arm around him. He thinks about the the photo they got the waiter to take earlier, halfway through their steaks, the way Neven's back had felt against his arm, the soft ribbing of his sweater, and imagines he might do the same.

The hotel isn't far. Neven pays the cab fare when they get there and Mitch can't find the words to argue about it. It's stupid and he knows it's stupid; he's yelled at Neven a hundred times on the pitch. But this is different, it's like they've been jolted halfway between universes and he's stuck in the middle between the one where they're ex-teammates meeting for a dinner and a session of what-if and he goes home to his wife and Neven gets on a plane and goes back home himself, and the one where they go out of Abacco's arm in arm with no one caring how it looks and he knows what the scratch of Neven's beard feels like against his throat. The words are caught somewhere in between there.

Neven touches him for the first time, fingers light on Mitch's wrist, not holding him, just -- there. Like Neven knows he's in outer space, which to be honest is probably obvious, scrawled across his face. "You don't have to come up."

He looks over his shoulder, instinctively, unavoidably. The taxi has already gone, but it's not like he couldn't get another. "I want to," he says.

 

He's known about Neven for years, the sort of quiet understanding that goes between friends when there's something that can't ever be talked about out loud. He's never asked any of the big questions, never said 'How do you make it work' or 'what's it like really' or 'who?', just a 'how're you going' in the quiet of an empty locker room, and Neven had usually said fine, or sometimes great, and sometimes, more often, towards the end, that kind of shrug that meant a not-okay he didn't want to linger on. 

They got dinner on those days, too, and watched movies or the rugby or anything else that had nothing to do with anything. It had always been easy enough to get him to laugh; it had never been, never _gotten_ weird, not even naked in the lockers or the showers. Mitch had looked a few times, just out of curiosity: the breadth of Neven’s shoulders, the sweeping curve of his waist, even the thick soft length of his cock between his thighs, but Neven had never looked back, and Mitch had been okay with that. 

He wonders now, standing next to him in the elevator with a careful half-foot of silent space between them, whether he should have pushed it, then. Whether he ought to have looked long enough for Neven to catch him watching. Whether he should have asked those questions it had felt so natural not to ask. Whether he would’ve had the balls to say yes then, when it had been safe -- as safe as football ever gets -- when their futures had shone the same.

By the time the elevator opens onto Neven’s floor, wondering has gotten him nowhere. It doesn’t really matter, anyway, because there’s nothing he can do about that, and they’re here, now, the both of them.

“You sure?” Neven asks the door, keycard already half into the lock.

“Yeah,” Mitch says. Something about the narrow white hallway grounds him, makes him feel present and solid again just being in it: there have been so many hotels, this is just one more. He feels like he could smile again, so he tries it, his eyes flicking up from Neven’s hand on the plastic card to the pale sliver of his neck visible behind his hair. It feels real. He imagines kissing him there, like he kisses Ria’s neck to tease her, nosing the curtain of hair aside and tasting the skin there; he wouldn’t have to bend over at all to reach him; just a step forward. “Yeah,” he says again. “I’m sure, mate.”

The door swings open. Neven holds it for him, and it’s nothing, it means nothing. He tells himself this, coming in; standing too close to Neven in the tiny hallway of the suite, watching as he turns away again to shut the door and slide the locks home: two soft clicks that hit Mitch like a kick in the arse. There’s only a half-step between them now; he takes it, the front of his hoodie brushing a ripple in the back of Neven’s sweater, an almost-touch, and then leans and and kisses him just like he’d imagined.

The nape of Neven’s neck is warm under his lips, the soft smoothness of his skin familiar. His hair, brushing past Mitch’s nose, smells nothing like Ria’s; but he’s known Neven, showered with him, played with him for so long that it’s familiar too: this handful of puzzle pieces that shouldn’t fit together but somehow do with almost terrifying precision. He kisses him again, an inch lower, at the hem of the sweater, almost between his shoulders, and Neven lets him, standing still against the door, his head bent down a little so that his hair falls forward, baring more of his skin. Mitch rests his forehead against the back of Neven’s skull and breathes out, ruffling his hair. It’s steady enough, but that’s all he can say for it. “God,” he mumbles, barely voicing it.

Neven reaches back and catches him gently by the wrist again -- his grip no tighter than it had been outside, but the gentle way his fingers feather down across Mitch’s pulse, over his palm, feels almost obscenely intimate; it stops up the air in his throat, sends shocky jitters down through his core. Then the tip of his finger brushes against Mitch’s ring and he stops instantly. In the silence of his breath Mitch could swear he can _hear_ Neven frown; he sighs a split second later, soft, a little rueful, and says, “Mitch-- I shouldn’t have asked you for this.”

“It’s alright,” Mitch says. It only takes a shift of his wrist and their fingers mesh together; Neven’s hands are nearly the length of his own and their knuckles press oddly against each other. He must have held his hand before in training if nothing else, but he doesn’t remember noticing it before now.

“Is it?” Neven takes a half step back, turning to face him; his hand slides out of Mitch’s and the perfectly normal air of the room feels cold.

“Yeah.” But Neven’s still looking at him with that frown behind his eyes, that unhappiness Mitch remembers from last year, and he says thoughtlessly, impulsively, “He got married, didn’t he?” and mentally kicks himself right afterwards, because he has even less right to ask the questions they don’t ask now than he would have had then.

Neven’s lips part just a little -- it at least erases the frown -- and then he smiles, lopsidedly, unevenly, and says, “Yeah.”

“Sorry.” One short stupid word isn’t much to cover everything that’s gone wrong and is still going wrong for the both of them, but Neven understands what he means and all the depth of it, he can see it in the way a tiny bit of the hurt leaches out of his half-smile. Mitch finds himself wanting to touch it; instead, he touches Neven’s shoulder, lightly, brushing his fingertips across the wool as if there were some bit of dust caught on it. When Neven doesn’t step back or shrug his hand off, he says, “It’s alright,” again, and then, a little awkwardly, “she and I, we have a thing…” He trails off, because he has no idea how to explain that he’s never actually taken Ria up on the idea of being open so long as he came home to her, never even _wanted_ to seriously, until one sentence in a steakhouse bathroom.

“A… thing,” Neven echoes, his eyebrow quirking up. Mitch has enough time to silently curse his inconvenient perceptiveness before Neven puts _his_ hand on Mitch’s shoulder, the thumb close against his neck. He doesn’t ask if Mitch is sure again, not in words; just gives him those few long seconds, then leans in and catches him in a kiss, as slow and gentle as if he had figured out everything Mitch hadn’t said.

Not having to lean down, it’s as different as Mitch had thought; he tries to, instinctively, and only ends up pushing their lips a little harder together so that Neven’s mouth opens under his, his hand sliding down across Mitch’s shoulder and gently along his spine to the small of his back. His beard tickles a little, but it’s not bad; when Neven pulls back a little to check on him Mitch follows him, kissing him again without giving him time to talk about it any more. He settles his hands on Neven’s sides, not quite at his back, biting at his lower lip; Neven makes this noise, low in his throat, deep and rough, and Mitch is the one to pull back this time because the sudden rush of want it spikes in him makes him almost dizzy, leaves him gasping already.

Instead of teasing him about it Neven just smiles, a little, easy one, and says, “Alright?” and Mitch forgives him everything about reading him too well, especially because he starts walking them back to the bed, holding Mitch steady as his calves hit the side, lowering him down and then sinking down himself in front of him, onto the floor between his knees.

“Alright,” Mitch says. He reaches out and touches Neven’s mouth like he’d wanted to before, now that he’s allowed, and it feels as soft under his fingertips as it had against his lips, smooth and wet, and then Neven’s tongue flicks out against his fingertip and he feels himself go embarrassingly pink. “D’you want,” he says, and bites his own lip, uncertain again; he raises his hand and tucks Neven’s stray hair back behind his ear, his fingers lingering on his jaw.

“This is good.” Neven’s palms run slowly up the top of his thighs, knee to hip; it’s probably to give him time to get used to the idea, but when his fingers find Mitch’s fly, when his knuckles brush against Mitch’s cock as he undoes the button, Mitch can’t help but take a quick breath. And Neven’s eyes, looking up through his lashes as he glances up at the noise -- Mitch nods, mutely, and sees a little spark of heat in them that makes him swallow hard.

Neven’s hand is bigger, rougher, warmer than his body expects, and it fits so well around his cock, his fingers curling around it with the sure ease of experience; his breath shudders again, and he keeps his hips down firmly on the mattress, but it’s a close thing. Neven strokes him a time or two, shiveringly satisfying in itself, then leans in and takes him in his mouth and it’s all lips and tongue and perfect wet heat that’s almost familiar. “Oh, shit,” Mitch says, because it’s very nearly that or scream, and hotel walls, well. 

Neven bows his head, taking more of him, and Mitch’s hand slides back into his hair, tangling there. He’s wearing too many clothes, he thinks distantly, he can’t feel the scrape of Neven’s beard against his thigh through his trousers, _Neven_ is wearing too many clothes. “Please,” he says, but either Neven’s telepathy fails him for once or he doesn’t want to give in because he doesn’t stop, just sucks him down to the root and moans around him like there’s nothing better than this, which -- which there just might not be. 

His hand tightens in Neven’s hair maybe too much, but Neven’s hands are solid weights on his hip, his thigh, and he does a thing with his tongue that has Mitch cursing again, holding him there, rocking up as much as he can in his grip, and he _swallows_ around him, Mitch’s cock caught tight in his throat, and Mitch is maybe ten seconds from embarrassing himself when Neven finally pulls off for a quick breath, his lips swollen redder now, shiny, a thin line of spit between his lower lip and the tip of Mitch’s cock, his eyes gone nearly black. He looks incredible, devastating; he leans down again, and Mitch forgets to say anything about their clothes at all. 

 

Afterwards he pulls Neven back up onto the bed with him, next to him. Neven hesitates a second when Mitch rolls onto his side, leaning on his elbow, to kiss him, but lets him; the bitter taste on his tongue isn’t so bad, really. “Come on now,” Mitch says, and tugs gently at the bottom of Neven’s sweater until he gives in, half-sitting up and stripping it off over his head along with his undershirt.

Sensing opportunity, Mitch goes for his jeans while Neven’s arms and head are still trapped in his sweater, pulling a startled wriggle, a _”Hey--”_ , and a light thwack on the shoulder when Neven finally frees himself, tossing the clothes off the edge of the bed. By that time Mitch has his fly open, though, and Neven’s hard already, the bulge in his dark briefs bigger, thicker even than Mitch remembers from the lockers, so from there all it takes is a little courage to nudge the elastic waistband down and slide his hand around it. It’s so heavy in his hand, the skin hot and already wet with precome; he can’t stop looking down at the way it slides through his fist, almost the same despite the odd angle of his wrist and yet completely different.

Neven’s arm settles around his shoulder; his breath ruffling the back of Mitch’s hair with quick pants, and when Mitch twists his grip just a little at the top of his stroke like he likes sometimes himself, he groans, thrusting up shamelessly into his hand, and says, “Yeah, like that--” so Mitch does it again, faster, squeezing a little tighter to get more of those quiet low noises out of him.

He comes almost silently, just a little hiss between his teeth, with heavy, pulsing spurts that Mitch has to force himself to look away from to see his face, to watch the tiny wrinkles smooth out from his forehead, around his closed eyes into a blissed-out look that makes Mitch nearly ready to go another round. Mitch strokes him through it, stopping only once the shivers turn from completion to what he’s pretty sure is _too much_ , then curiously trailing his finger through the thick streaks of come spattered up over his stomach and chest. It feels the same as his own, and he feels a little silly for thinking about it. 

When Mitch glances back up, feeling eyes on him, Neven is looking down at him again, so he sticks his finger in his mouth, grinning a little -- that taste’s not the worst, either -- just to see Neven’s eyes go wide with surprise before he laughs and smacks him again, his smile for once carefree.

**Author's Note:**

> [the pic that launched a single ship](http://41.media.tumblr.com/c91557e38ad462f7782e47e26016f4ff/tumblr_o145msplKJ1qklipjo1_1280.jpg)


End file.
